When my mom came to get me at the airport, it didn't feel like the reunions you see in movies. No running into each other's arms. No tears of joy. No smile that said, I've missed you so much.
She spotted me from across the waiting area. I had one small bag clutched in my hand, heavy though it wasn't really heavy. My steps felt stiff, like I was dragging the weight of everything I had been through behind me. She walked toward me, her heels clicking against the tiled floor. For a second, I thought maybe she would open her arms wide. Maybe she would look at me like I was her whole world.
But when she reached me, the hug was quick, almost awkward. Her arms wrapped around me and let go before I could even decide if I wanted to hold on. Her perfume clung to my clothes, sharp and too sweet, like it was trying to cover something up. She asked if I was hungry, if the flight was okay, if I was tired. I answered with short words. Yes. No. I'm fine. My voice didn't sound like my own.
The drive from the airport was a blur of headlights and strange buildings. I pressed my forehead against the window, watching the city slide by in shapes and colors I didn't recognize. My mom kept talking—little things, like pointing out new roads, asking if I'd like the new house, saying she had decorated my room. But her voice felt far away. I gave her nods and half-smiles, the kind you give when you don't want someone to know you're breaking inside.
When we reached the house, I followed her up the steps. The place looked nice—clean walls, flowers in front, a kind of order I wasn't used to. She opened the door to my new room with a little smile, like she expected me to light up. The room had fresh sheets, curtains, a desk in the corner. Everything was neat, untouched.
"This is yours," she said, her voice a little too bright.
I nodded and stepped inside. My hands touched the bed, the soft blanket, the cool surface of the desk. But none of it felt like mine. None of it felt safe.
The moment she left and the door closed behind me, I sat on the bed and stared at the wall. The silence pressed down on me. I didn't want to explore. I didn't want to sit in the living room. I didn't want to eat at the table. My body felt heavy, my heart heavier.
That room became my shield. I spent hours lying on the bed, listening to music in my headphones, staring at the ceiling until my eyes hurt. Sometimes I cried into the pillow, so quietly no one could hear. Other times I felt nothing at all, just numbness, like I had turned to stone.
Days passed like that. My mom would knock on my door. "Come eat," she'd say. Sometimes I went, sometimes I didn't. I could see the confusion in her face, maybe even disappointment. But I didn't know how to tell her I couldn't breathe around her. I didn't know how to explain that the person I was, the child she had left, wasn't here anymore.
Still, in that silence, something began to shift. It wasn't big or sudden. It was small. Tiny glimpses of peace came in moments I didn't expect.
Like when the sunlight slipped through my curtains in the morning, and I sat up in bed and realized the sun didn't feel like a threat here. It was softer. Warmer.
Or when I stepped outside into the yard at night and breathed in the cooler air, and for a second, it felt like my chest wasn't being crushed.
Or when I sat at my desk and scribbled in a notebook, just random words, and it felt like maybe, maybe, I still had a voice.
I wasn't healed. I wasn't even close. The nightmares still came. The heaviness still weighed on me. But here, away from the streets and faces that broke me, I had small cracks of light. And for the first time in so long, I wondered if maybe—just maybe—there was something worth holding onto. Maybe I just needed to leave that vicinity. Where all my pain stemmed from
It scared me. It terrified me. Because feeling even the smallest bit better felt like a betrayal to the pain I carried. But I also knew—I couldn't keep drowning forever.
And maybe, in this room, behind these walls, away from the noise, I could finally start to breathe.... I just wish everything could end... So I'd finally be at peace